I awoke this morning not feeling very rested. It's weird, but I think the change in time may have had a psychological effect on my ability to sleep. I kept waking up and checking to see if it was light out.
Ron, decided that he didn't want to sleep in a tent anymore, so he went on ahead without us and will meet us again in St. Augustine. He is going to do the final bit in 1 less day than we are since tomorrow is such a short day. At this point I'm inclined to want to do the same, but it won't get me home any sooner so there isn't an advantage for me.
We got up packed up our bikes and then had breakfast in the motel, which was more or less the usual fare that one would expect. I lingered a bit long at breakfast so quite a few riders had already left by the time I walked out to get on my bike.
I had every intention of taking the prescribed route, but somewhere between the front door and my bike I decided to take the alternate route that Google had suggested. It was kind of convoluted through town so I set my phone to do turn by turn navigation and set off. Some 10 miles of residential streets many with bike lanes and I was back on highway 90 where I was greeted with a very nice bike lane and was fairly quickly out of town.
As you can see in this photo the road was smooth, the bike lane was wide and clean and there wasn't really a lot of traffic.
The actual route that everyone else took went south of Tallaassee and wound around some before rejoining 90 at Monicello.
Along the way I saw this plantation style house.
The route I took was a nice alternative, but from what everyone said the longer route was quite nice with good road surfaces as well.
A few miles west of Monticello there was a section of a few miles with no shoulder. That part wasn't much fun but there also wasn't a lot of traffic and the drivers were considerate.
When I got to Monitcello I thought maybe I would get lunch. As I rode through town it appeared that they were cleaning up after a parade. I didn't spot any places that I really wanted to eat at so I rode on.
A few miles out of Greenville, our ultimate destination for the day, I stopped at a convenience store. As I was getting ready to leave I clipped in with my right leg as normal, but managed to tip my bike over and scraped my knee a bit. Not a big deal but it was kind of embarrassing, even though no one actually saw me do it.
A short ride into town where I found our lodging for the night, the Grace Manor Inn, I rode around town until I spotted a small diner where I had lunch. It was OK. Afterward I went to the Inn where the proprietor asked me to hang out on the front porch for awhile as she was busy cooking our dinner.
I did so and after some time others arrived and then we worked out what rooms we would stay in and then relaxed on the verandah.
Dinner was served at 6. It was by far the most excellent meal we have had on this trip.
We all felt somewhat out of place dining in such elegance. The house was originally built in the 1800's as a hotel and then eventually turned into a bread and breakfast.
Tomorrow, we have a short day, and breakfast at the late hour of 8AM.
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